


Red Hoodie

by Tatalina



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hackers, BAMF Stiles, Hitman!Derek, M/M, No Werewolves, Stiles messing with Derek, There will be violence later on, hacker!Stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-16 15:30:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tatalina/pseuds/Tatalina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles Stilinski is a well known computer hacker. He's rich, he's talented, and he's on every major Wanted List. Quite an achievement, he thinks. He is also now the target for hired assassin, Derek Hale. Somehow, he thinks this is not going to go well at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off an [ AU](http://dylanofuckme.tumblr.com/post/31572505063/teen-wolf-au-stiles-stilinski-is-a-computer) by this [ awesome person ](http://dylanofuckme.tumblr.com/).
> 
> EDIT 12/20/14  
> Hi y'all. It's been sooo long since I've updated and I'm pretty sure the majority of any readers I had have given up hope. An update is coming. I promise. Before the year ends, it'll be here.

Despite all the craziness in his life, Stiles had always focused on the major events in his life: the day he got his first computer, the day his mom died, the day he graduated from MIT, and recently, the day he met Derek Hale. They were the catalysts for everything that would one day make up his entire life—little events and bits of information, like facing down more than a few guns in his twenty years of life—that would end up coming together to form his existence. 

Those few big events led to everything.

He was eight when he received his first computer. It was an old PC, little to no memory space, but enough to entertain him for a while. His parents gave it to him right after his mom got sick for the first time, to keep him out of their hair, he was pretty sure. They were trying to sort out treatments and payments and needed some time away from the hyperactive eight year old that was their son. At the time, Stiles was just excited to have his own computer, not caring so much about the reasons why. After all, his mom was just sick for a while—there was no way she would die, the doctors and his parents told him so. Why did it matter why they gave it to him? What was important was that he had it.

Except, apparently, he and everyone else were wrong. Three years later, his mom got sick again, and within six months, she was lying beneath a marble headstone in a plot of land big enough for their entire family. He was twelve years old and didn’t know how he was supposed to grow up without his mom. His father didn’t know how, either, throwing himself tirelessly into his work, to the point where Stiles lost almost any connection with him. Stiles, without much to do, turned to his computer, a despised object that had caused him to waste time instead of spending it with his mom.

At first it was simple things, going through his own locked files and then his his father’s using a command prompt he’d installed on the hard drive. Later, with nothing else to do, he began conquering the networks and computers belonging to the companies within their town, none of which had any real defenses. It was pretty easy, just creating programs and guessing passwords, slowly building up his cache of computer knowledge. Honestly, it was just a matter of creating strings of codes, using tutorials he’d found online, something that his mind, always speeding along, could easily comprehend.

Everything either had a pattern or was part of one, he’d noticed. Firewalls were just layers upon layers of them—of textiles and ribbons of code thrown together to make a dress, like the green one his mom had used to wear every Easter, just waiting for the seams to be cut open.

MIT showed him something similar. He was thirteen then, and all of his professors pitied him: the little boy stuck with people so much older—he couldn’t possibly comprehend the applications of what he was learning. Except, he could. He understood everything they were teaching and more, and by fifteen he knew how to build programs and tear them down, how to take information without even his “highly qualified” teachers realizing he’d been in their files. 

He didn’t have any misconceptions about who he was, as most teens, at least, not like they assumed he did. ‘Identity’ wasn’t a perception of himself he was seeking: it was simply a string of numbers he could use to get what he wanted, both for himself and anyone who asked. At a price of course. 

At first, he hadn’t given thought to the salary side of things, just doing everything for the pure entertainment value, not thinking about profits until he was on the cusp of turning seventeen. It was right after completing a project for two of his classes, both of which dealt with the ethical and lawful sides of technological advancement. The project was about creating and utilizing new algorithms to increase the government’s security. They were only allowed to think on a theoretical level, but the idea had sparked Stiles’ interest. He created a program, and when faced with the possibility of selling it to the US government, he realized that he could make a much larger profit by opening his clientele up to anyone. Money was money, what did he care which ‘side’ the person paying him was on?

Starting out, it was just selling small, mostly harmless, programs and software to kids around school. Then it was to a few businesses that had heard about him. Everything was anonymous, of course, at least on his part. He didn’t want to risk any trouble with the school. Based off of the name of his first program, he’d been thinking of cloaking and covering when he’d named it, he took on the moniker of the Red Hoodie; it fit well, seeing as his favorite hoodie was actually red. 

As he delved deeper into the possibilities, though, the name grew to be protection from a much more dangerous agenda, keeping him from getting arrested or injured. It was a gradual transition, a few clients asking if he could get them some information, as opposed to crafting programs for the tasks to sell to them. It made sense to Stiles, cutting out the middle man and all that, but it didn’t stop him from increasing the price of his services. No one seemed to mind, and soon enough, it had turned into stealing a wide variety of information, including personal identities. 

Half a year later, a woman by the name of Argent requested him to create an identity, for her daughter, who needed to get out of the country. Stiles hadn’t bothered asking why—it wasn’t his business—but he did it, and he did it well. He’d actually gotten a bonus from the family, because when she applied for a passport, she didn’t even gotten a second glance, despite the fact that less than two weeks before, she hadn’t existed. Honestly, it hadn’t even been that hard; all he had to do was develop a program that basically inserted the identity into school files, into social networking sites, etc, and he was able to make it seem as if it had all been there for years. The hardest part had been getting into Social Security, fabricating a number and getting the placement right. This wasn’t his the rodeo—he’d created and stolen and destroyed identities plenty of times before. Easy-peasy shit, it was.

It wasn’t until a few months later, that he learned of why Kate Argent, now Casey Atwain, had had to leave. She’d robbed quite a few people, the most prominent being Peter Hale, and in the process, had ended up killing both Peter’s wife and seven year old daughter. If that wasn’t bad enough, she was also involved in the misfortune that had befallen the rest of the Hale family a few years prior. 

While Stiles broadcasted that he could and would do anything for the right price, and while he’s helped many criminals break laws or escape before, he doesn’t think he would have helped the Argents, if he’d known the truth. What he did wasn’t exactly savory, but he had to draw the line somewhere and that somewhere was murdering a child. There wasn’t much he could do, though, not without losing major business, or worse. The Argents had sent multiple clients his way and Stiles was pretty sure that if anything happened to Kate and they linked it back to him, it would be a lot more than missed opportunities in question. A family with contacts like that, he’d be dead before the week was out.

Mind, he was pretty sure he was going to end up dead, anyway. 

This wasn’t the first time a hit had been put out on him; you didn’t do what Stiles did without stepping on a whole lot of toes. After the first time, an unfortunate mishap involving his now dead neighbor, he’d gotten more careful, going so far as to do all of his dealings and drop-offs in other cities. He had contingency plans for every scenario he could think of, which, not to boast, was no small number. The next few assassins that came after him hadn’t even gotten close.

Derek Hale, however, was different. He had a reputation in the business—no matter where someone was, no matter how much work they put in to hiding, Hale always found them. Stiles, like any intelligent person—and let’s be honest, he was well into the genius range—kept track of the man and kept tabs on his movements. 

That was why, on a cold rainy morning, Stiles was sitting in front of his many monitors, his head buried in his hands. It was official. He was officially going to die. That morning, at approximately 4:08 Eastern Standard Time, Derek Hale had been hired to kill the Red Hoodie. The hit had been put out by Peter Hale—an in person meeting, if Stiles’ sources were correct. No money had changed hands, but clearly an agreement had been reached, and at 4:37, Derek Hale began his research.

This wasn’t just a hit for money, Stiles knew. This was cold-blooded revenge for the two remaining Hale men. As far as they were concerned, the Red Hoodie was the driving force of the downfall of the Hale family. He’d helped Kate get away with all of her crimes Scott-free. Stiles was basically an accessory to murder and robbery. Fraud, too, he was pretty sure. In all honesty, part of him completely understood Hale’s vendetta. Sure, he wished it wasn’t with him in the rifle’s site, but he could understand it. 

The other part just wanted to survive. 

With a sigh, Stiles picked his head up and leaned back into his chair. First things first, he had to make sure to cover anything that could lead to Chicago. He made sure to never attract attention to the city that housed him, but he still had all of his equipment here and did all of his work here. With the occasional exception of when he had to go out while working, during which times Stiles used his phone, all of his online jobs had been done in this very apartment. Now, normally, cell phones were about the worst possible devices to use when breaking the law and hacking into someone’s files, but he’d fixed the Blackberry up quite a bit, if he said so himself.

Fifteen minutes later, Stiles was positive that there was nothing electronic from the Red Hoodie that could be used to trace back to his location. He’d learned early on in this career to cover his tracks, so really, this was just a formality. As was the next thing on his to-do list.

God, Deaton was going to murder him. Having lived smack-dab in the middle of the morally un-ethical group for the past six years of his life, Stiles had made a few connections. One of those was Deaton, a man who was technically retired but still contracted out his services on occasion. Their friendship was more of a mutual arrangement, and Deaton had a very strong no-hit policy. 

This put Stiles in a bit of an awkward position. He could either tell Deaton, which was the right thing to do, so that Deaton could distance himself and protect his own assets, or he could keep it a secret. While the latter seemed more favorable, there was no way it would work. Within an hour of Peter hiring Derek, every chat room and internet nook was bustling with the news. The second Stiles had gotten on, he’d been bombarded with questions and a scathing message from Lydia. For a moment, he smirked and shook his head. He really hoped that none of them actually expected him to answer. He knew better than to try to talk to Lydia when she was angry, and he didn’t respond to strangers online.

While the hacking community was entertaining, it was also filled with a large number of rather annoying, untalented frauds, who liked to pretend that they were decent with coding, but couldn’t tell a dialogue box from Notepad. They had no idea how to erase their evidence and were known for getting themselves and others caught by the police, and even worse, the Feds. All of this boiled down to the fact that it was going to be next to impossible to conceal the hit from Deaton. Might as well not even bother, he decided with another sigh.

He groaned as he sat up straight in the chair and reached for his phone. It was nestled between his keyboard and an empty cup of coffee, which Stiles nudged out of the way as he grabbed the cellular device.

Thumbing down to Deaton’s contact info, and pressing a few buttons along the way to ensure that all of his protocols were still on-line, Stiles typed in the message.

Need to talk.

He stared at the screen, deliberating for a few moments before finally pressing send.

Stiles set his phone down and stared blankly at the computer screen in front of him. Sure, he was one of the most famous coders within his generation; a title well deserved, considering that at twenty years old he was at least half a decade younger than everyone else he knew in the business, besides Lydia (but her business wasn’t in the realm of computers). Sure, he was a lot richer, too, but on days like this, he found himself wishing that he wasn’t famous enough to have hits put out on him and that he wasn’t on multiple wanted lists, including Homeland Security’s. It would be nice to be able to wake up in the morning and go to work in an office where everyone knew who he was and where he got actual credit for everything he did.

Besides Deaton and a few select others, no one in the hacking world knew him as anything but the Red Hoodie. That was his name on every list, with a nice capital R and H. Yeah, it was for his protection and he wouldn’t have it any other way, truly, but there were times, like today, when he wished that he’d chosen a legal career, where the only list he was on was the one for getting a promotion or some shit like that.

It would be nice, he thought, to be able to go about life without getting a price on his head. But then, of course, where would be the fun in that?

Stiles’ phone vibrated against the hard wooden desk, rattling a few of the tipped over paper cups. He picked it up and thumbed over the center button, opening the message.

Yes. We do. This afternoon, usual place.

He nodded, but didn’t reply. Deaton knew he’d be there, so there was no point in sending more data back out into the technological stream, where some talented dick might actually be able to grab a hold of it.

Stiles glanced at the clock on his computer. 5:29. Great. He could already tell that his day was going to be a spectacular ball of shit.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based off of this [ AU](http://dylanofuckme.tumblr.com/post/31572505063/teen-wolf-au-stiles-stilinski-is-a-computer) by this [ awesome person ](http://dylanofuckme.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Sorry if there are any mistakes. This chapter is un-beta'd, because my fantastic and lovely beta [Cat](http://theimportanceofbeinghuman.tumblr.com/) is on vacation. If you're reading this, I hope you're having an awesome time!

Stiles sighed with relief as he pushed through the glass doors of the café and was met with the heavy aromas of coffee and freshly-baked pastries. The small shop had a certain ambiance to it that had drawn him in when he first moved to Chicago, and had delicious coffee that had kept him coming back. It was by far his favorite place in the city, marked as one of the only places outside of his apartment where he felt he could truly relax. 

It had a basic set-up, with squishy couches and arm chairs around a small table, and then a section of mismatched tables with varying numbers of chairs around them. It was nice, though, because they kept a couple power strips plugged in, so that no one customer could hold the monopoly of the free wifi by commandeering the plug. While Stiles never brought his laptop in, he still appreciated the thought, as he sometimes worked on his phone.

Today, it was all he wanted, to be able to plop into one of the arm chairs and stay there until the café closed. Unfortunately, he knew he couldn’t stay for more than an hour, since he had to go meet Deaton, and one of the baristas had turned on the radio to a Top 40 pop station, which he definitely couldn’t handle the prolonged exposure from. 

He moved forward across the tiled floor to lean against the counter, raising an eyebrow at Isaac. 

“You couldn’t have picked the music today?” Stiles asked, cocking his head to the side.

Isaac chuckled and gave a small shrug. One of the many benefits of the café was his friend, who, with impeccable taste in music and a knack for making drinks just the way Stiles wanted them, was on one of the top tiers of friendship. The curly-haired man was almost always there when Stiles came in, providing a smile and some much needed banter to his day.

“You don’t like Kesha? I’d think her songs were your anthem, they fit you so perfectly.”

“No one with taste likes Kesha,” Stiles responded.

“Exactly my point. You have no taste. In anything,” Isaac said, gesturing at Stiles’ plaid shirt, which was unbuttoned to reveal a worn t-shirt he’d found on the floor that morning. 

“Uncalled for. You clearly just don’t understand the appeal.” 

“I guess not. What can I get you today?”

Stiles glanced over at the muffins on display, frowning when he saw that the banana-nut chocolate chip ones were gone. Damn, he loved those. He could always just get a pumpkin muffin, or one of the cheese croissants, he rationalized internally. There was no reason to let the lack of his favorite morning snack ruin his day. Not that it wasn’t already ruined, another part of him reminded.

“Earth to Stiles?”

“Yeah, sorry. Get me a caramel macchiato and,” his voice drifted off as his considered his choices again. “And a double chocolate chip muffin, please.” It was the last one and compared to the other two, it just seemed more desirable, with the dark chocolate chips sprinkled on top of it. Plus, somehow chocolate seemed like it could make him feel better.

“Bad day?” Isaac asked, as he rang Stiles up.

Stiles nodded glumly, as he handed over a five dollar bill and the change needed.

“Anything I can help with?”

“Nah.” Stiles gave Isaac a small smile and shook his head. “It’s work stuff. Some bad news came out today, which may make it hard for me to do much without attracting attention.”

“Ah.” Isaac didn’t say anything after that, instead choosing to narrow his eyes for a moment before turning away to pull the muffin from the case. One of the things Stiles loved about Isaac was that he was a pretty smart dude; he’d figured out very early on that Stiles’ work wasn’t exactly wholesome and he didn’t judge him for it. In fact, sometimes the barista even offered to help, and while Stiles always declined, it still meant a lot. 

Isaac handed him the muffin, and then his drink. He took a sip of his drink and let out a small noise of contentment, to which Isaac started giggling at.

“Shut up or I won’t feed you the next time you come over,” Stiles bit out as he continued drinking. Almost every week they got together in Stiles’ apartment to play video games and gorge out on pizza, and honestly, Stiles wasn’t above withholding food for the sake of his pride.

“That would mean you wouldn’t get to eat, too,” Isaac joked. “Because there’s no way you could keep me from pizza, as scrawny as you are.”

“First of all, don’t doubt my awesome skills. Second, I am lithe, not scrawny, thank you very much. There is a difference.”

“Sure. I’ll talk to you later,” Isaac said, as a customer walked up behind Stiles. With a wave, Stiles departed to a nearby table, leaving Isaac to do his job. He ate his muffin quickly, washing it down with the macchiato, and then sitting for a half hour until he was ready to go. He called out his goodbyes over his shoulder and smiled at Isaac’s response.

Sometimes, he couldn’t help but feel amazed at how close they’d gotten, and at how much Stiles trusted the other. While he had friends within the city, only a select few knew anything about what he did for a living, and out of those, only two had ever been inside of his apartment. If he wanted to, Isaac could probably make a hefty sum by selling the information he knew about Stiles to someone like Derek. Thankfully, though, that just wasn’t who Isaac was. Stiles was pretty sure that if a negative thought like that even crossed Isaac’s mind, the guy would explode, like when they shot someone in one of their games. 

Speaking of games, he needed to remember to pick up a few new games, since he and Isaac had started to get bored of his current ones, and while Super Smash Bros never got old, it could ruin friendships like nobody’s business. Maybe The Last of Us or that new Lego game that had just come out. People could think whatever they wanted of him, but no one could deny how entertaining Lego games were—something about playing as a little yellow man, whose limbs were all detachable was more fun than Stiles would ever admit. 

As he walked down the street, towards the El, he debated over which game would be the better option. Probably the one that didn’t involve plastic toys. But then again, plastic was one of the coolest substances out there; in some form or another, it existed way back in 1600 BCE, and was used in the Middle Ages and then all throughout history, as the chemical creation came into being. Not that Legos really boasted a history of starting out from egg protein, but anyone had to admit that it was pretty cool. As far as Stiles was concerned, companies had missed out on a major marketing strategy, by not bringing up how long plastic or something similar had been around.

Then again, long existences didn’t mean anything. You could be just as fantastic even if you hadn’t been around for thousands of years, or even more than a few decades. Stiles was the proof of that, and Deaton, who was entering a bar less than two hundred feet in front of him, was proof that age did bring wisdom.

He sighed as he quickly covered the cement sidewalk and pushed through the door himself. To say he wasn’t looking forward to this conversation was like saying Batman was rich—understatement of the fucking year.

The bar was a decent enough place, with pretty good burgers, even if they didn’t have curly fries. Deaton had situated himself at a table in the back corner, past the actual bar. Stiles was surprised that the table had been open, seeing as it was now well into the lunch rush and the corner seats tended to be in high want during that time.

He didn’t voice his question, though, as he sat himself down into the wooden chair. Deaton didn’t spare him a glance as he read through the menu. There was another laminated sheet in front of Stiles’ place, but considering this was at least the eighth time they’d been here, he knew what he was getting. So did Deaton, he was pretty sure, but the older man liked to keep up appearances. 

“So,” the man said finally, setting his menu down onto the polished wooden tabletop. “What did you do this time?”

“Why do you always assume that I did something? Maybe I just wanted to have lunch with an old friend.” 

Deaton raised an eyebrow and sat back in his chair, waiting silently. Stiles chewed on his lower lip, trying to figure out where to start, since there was clearly no beating around the bush.

“I may or may not have a hit out on me?” He said eventually, hands turning over in the air as he spoke.

“You don’t know?”

“Okay, so someone wants me dead, it’s a thing, can we talk about how I fix it now?”

A waitress came over and took their orders, collecting the menus before departing. Deaton stayed quiet until she returned with their drinks: Dr. Pepper for Stiles and water for Deaton. Finally, the man spoke.

“Why the Hales are after you is the most pressing matter. Peter doesn’t normally get involved in issues unless things are personal, and Derek has ostentatiously refused to work for Peter before now. What did you do to warrant this kind of reaction?” Deaton kept his voice even as he spoke, calmly taking a drink as he discussed the death sentence on Stiles’ head.

“That’s the thing. I haven’t done anything recently.”

“The implication being that you did something before?”

Stiles sighed and took a huge gulp of his soda. If he had known that getting involved with Kate Argent would bring so much trouble around him, he would have just said no. No amount of money was worth this. Of course, hindsight was 20/20.

“I helped out the Argents a while back, when I was just getting started. They’ve been very generous since,” was all he said. Let Deaton piece it all together if he wanted to know all of the gory details.

The waitress was back again, this time with their food, and Stiles took the opportunity to scarf down his burger before the conversation started back up again. Deaton, however, had no such machinations.

“The Argents are a well connected family. It’s not wise to involved with them; they make just as bad friends as they do enemies.”

Stiles coughed and shook his head, swallowing down the bite he’d just taken.

“You don’t think I know that by now? They’re not the issue, though. Hale is.”

“Yes, well, you’d be smart to check into your clients next time—see who your work might get you into trouble with—to avoid this situation again.”

“If there is a next time,” Stiles pointed out, his fingers twitching around his burger.

Deaton had no reply to that, choosing instead to focus on his own food. Stiles took the opening to look around, make sure no one seemed to be listening in. He was sure Deaton would have been careful about it all, keeping eyes and ears out for anything that might be suspicious, but it always made Stiles feel better to check for himself. That done, he pulled out his phone. At the very least, he could dig up something about Hale while he waited.

Not that there was much to find, he soon discovered.

“I’ll do my best to keep an ear to the community for you,” Deaton said, breaking through Stiles’ concentration, causing the younger man to jump.

“What?”

“If I hear anything important, I’ll send word to you, but I’m not getting involved. The Hales and I have an agreement and I don’t wish to put that in jeopardy. Lose strings and all that.” Deaton set his fork down on his now empty plate and looked at Stiles.

Despite the fact that he’d known the words were coming, it didn’t make hearing them any easier, Stiles realized. Deaton was one of the few people he fully trusted and it sucked knowing that the man couldn’t help him without risking himself. 

“Thank you for that,” he said quietly, taking another drink. He comforted himself in staring at the sports memorabilia that decorated the walls. There were a couple of jerseys, as well as lacrosse and tennis rackets, and a few signed baseball bats, too.

The bill was delivered and paid for, before either of them spoke again. 

“I hope it works out,” Deaton said as he stood up, pulling on his jacket.

“Me too,” Stiles muttered under his breath, watching the older man leave. For a second, he could picture it as an older version of himself walking away—the older and wiser Stilinski who gave advice every once in a while and made a pretty penny when he was bored. If only he lived long enough for that to happen. He looked back at the screen of his phone and began typing. If there was anything to be found about Derek Hale, Stiles would find it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm also on [tumblr](http://terrafirmaspower.tumblr.com). Feel free to message me if you want to talk about the story, or anything at all.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on [](http://regenerationterra.tumblr.com>tumblr.</a>)  
> Check out my writing tag on there, for info about other stuff I've written that isn't on here!


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